Archive for November, 2010

Checkout Vince DeStefano’s MK-RC7 Flash Trigger Review

November 30th, 2010

For years Cactus radio triggers have been the cheapest radio flash triggers for use in manual flash triggering but it looks like Meike has managed to make some triggers that are slightly cheaper and have several features that appear to be a a significant improvement over Cactus triggers. Vince SeStefano has done a nice little [...]

Real Estate Photography Success In Tasmania

November 29th, 2010

Long time PFRE reader, contributor and Tasmanian real estate photographer Milton Lowe just sent me and article from his local Sunday Tasmanian newspaper that quotes him explaining the benefits of real estate photography. In the article Milton points out that he has been doing real estate photography for 5 years after being a real estate agent for [...]

Create Pfretour.com Tours From Inside Lightroom

November 28th, 2010

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about pfretour.com. First of all, for those new readers readers let me recap what pfretour.com is all about. In many markets, independent real estate photographers need to have some method of supplying tours that can compete with the combined tour and photography packages that the big tour companies like [...]

How to Do A Dolly Shot Without a Dolly

November 24th, 2010

I ran across this cool little tip for shooting video. Most real estate video shooters don’t have the time or equipment to do dolly shots and certainly not crane shots but this little technique can add some class to your property video. For those of you that don’t know about dollies and cranes, they are the way [...]

Real Estate Photographer Gets Credit and Link From Huffington Post

November 23rd, 2010

I think special recognition is in order for Huffington Post because Estella Sneider just sent me an example of coverage that a listing she shot recently for Mauricio Umansky just off sunset strip in LA. The Huffington Post article actually has a link in the article to Estella’s website. I’ve ranted before about the fact [...]

A Short History of Real Estate Photography

November 22nd, 2010

Today is the 20th birthday of the World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first browser and web server and ran both on his desk at CERN in 1990. I can clearly remember the first time, sometime during 1993, that I installed the Mosaic browser on my PC at Boeing and first started clicking on hyperlinks. [...]

New DxO Optics Pro 6.5 May Be Worth Looking At

November 21st, 2010

Every time DxO comes out with a new version of DxO Optics Pro I spend some time with the trial version to see how the new version works. In the past I’ve never purchased it because it felt like it has a lot overlap with Lightroom and its user interface never felt right to me. [...]

Flickriver – An Interesting Flickr Viewer

November 17th, 2010

Thanks to ‘Kris’ Bjarne Haug for putting me on to another cool way to look at flickr. It’s called Flickriver.com. Flickriver is a web-based Flickr viewer that allows viewing hundreds of flickr photos quickly and easily, in one seamless “river of photos” view, never needing to hit next to load the next page. It also allows [...]

$200,000 For a Five Minute YouTube Property Video?

November 16th, 2010

Thanks to Saul in Suffolk Park, NSW for the link to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald about the 5 minute property video that listing agent Ross Savas of Kay & Burton paid $200,000 for to sell the Ilyuka, Portsea mansion near Melbourne, AU. This is proof that top agents are willing to spend [...]

Elegant Architectural Images From Nanaimo

November 15th, 2010

Back in July of 2010, I did a post on how Alberto and Mia Dominguez were finding that their hard work in building their real estate photography business in Nanaimo, BC was paying off. Mia just sent me a link to their new website that they are launching. What a stunning set of images! Very [...]

A Cheap And Easy Way to Get Real Estate Photography Business

November 14th, 2010

Dan Abraham, a real estate photographer in Prince George, BC offered to let me share his successful technique of getting more business by helping your agent clients get more listings. If you are a regular PFRE reader you will recognize Dan’s name from a post I did on area listing sites to promote your photography [...]

Blending High-Art and Fashion With Property Video

November 12th, 2010

Brett Clements recently showed me  a several videos from a series he recently did celebrating his return to Sydney and Melbourne after 5 years of being restricted from shooting there by a business agreement. Brett says, “Some months ago, I re-aquired all of Propvid Australia and was commissioned to return to where it all started [...]

Short and Sweet Property Video From Nanaimo

November 11th, 2010

Back in September we featured a video by Jacob McNeil and his fiance Jaimie, young photographers in Nanaimo, BC. Jacob just sent me another of their recent videos. I enjoy Jacob and Jaimie’s work, it has a light straight forward feel to it and in slightly over a minute they have distilled down a feeling [...]

An Update To Lighting Interiors Has Been E-mailed

November 10th, 2010

I just sent download links for an update to Scott Hargis’s eBook to everyone that’s purchased that eBook. This update has no content updates, just updates to punctuation errors, and a few spacing fixes. Nothing really earth shaking unless you are an English major. I’m letting everyone know that I’ve sent this update because I’m [...]

What Does it Cost You to Show Up For a Shoot?

November 9th, 2010

I’ve had several discussions this week and last that suggest that some people in real estate photography need some help analyzing their costs of being in business. I think there are many beginning real estate photographers that don’t know what the lower limit is for what they can work for. $99/shoot may make sense in [...]

Pixie Click Remote Tigger by PolePixie.com

November 8th, 2010

Guest post by Lee Jinks of McAllen, TX: Pole Aerial Photography (PAP) has gained popularity over recent years, but until lately, entry into PAP required a major investment and/or some serious engineering.  Today there are various low cost products available to those wanting to attempt PAP.  The most economical approach is with a low cost [...]

An Easy, Inexpensive Way to Accept Credit Cards Anywhere

November 7th, 2010

Fred Light, recently started a discussion in the PFRE flickr discussion group that is worth highlighting. Fred’s post points out a tuaw.com review of the Square credit card reader designed to make it easier than ever before to for individuals and small businesses to take credit card payment anywhere without having to have a merchant account. This product [...]

Mainstream Agents Starting to Get The Importance of Photography – Sort of

November 4th, 2010

Thanks to Christopher Bradbury of Glenwood Road Studios, LLC in Weston, CT for pointing out this article on the StyledStaged & Sold blog site of REALTOR Mag. This article is an interesting commentary on the recent study where Tim Ellis at Redfin showed more data that shows what anyone in real estate that was paying attention already [...]

Washington Home Tours is Launching a New Business

November 2nd, 2010

The last couple of days I’ve been talking to Robert Barr of Washington Home Tours in Woodinville, WA, who is launching his new real estate photography business. Robert graduated from the University of Washington in the summer of 2009 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Robert has been shooting for an unnamed big tour [...]

Would You Like to Have Autofocus While Shooting Video?

November 1st, 2010

When purchased my Canon 5DMkII  I was I was naive about video. I didn’t realize that when shooting video in LiveView autofocus is disabled so you have to focus manually. Woa, big surprise and what a challenge. Luckily, when shooting most real estate subjects you’re using a wide angle lens with a lot of depth of [...]